PL Lead Mine A5 Reupload

This is a small payload map with 3 checkpoints. The track winds in an "S" shape around a mine and finishes under Red's base. There's lots of height variation and alternative routes but the map itself is quite compact.

This is my first map and I'm really looking forward to getting some feedback on it and seeing how it plays.

Looks to me more like a pseudo-beta, with basic textures placed into basic shapes. Regardless, your statement has truth, it is highly I inadvisable to start detailing your map before it has been tested! Rather, you can use the developer grid textures by searching "dev" in the material browser.

ingame it didnt seem as detailed as i first thought it was (by the threadpicture ) but there is already some detailing in it.

some other tips are:
1) you may make the buildings on the right side of picture 3 (so next to the first blue spawn) taller,because the jumping classes are otherwise able to shoot their projectiles over the buildings.
2) I think it will be pretty hard to cap the last stage, because it will take some time to get the highground by using the crates (so you will probably be badly damaged when you get the highground). If you should take the slope next to the explodepit, you will probably be shot as well (during the walking to the explodepit and walking up the slope). Maybe because of this the flank in the leftbottom of picture 4 (with i thought hydrosigns) will become the major route. Perhaps turning the slope 180 degrees, so it can be taken from the side blue should be pushing, will make a huge difference, because it is still hard to get the highround but not as hard as before. But I could be wrong as well
3) the lightning in the grey building in front of the last stage (in the bottom of picture 5) has very intense lightning.
4) Like tip 2, I guess the stage on picture 6 will be pretty hard to push through, because for not jumpclasses it will be pretty hard to get the highground. But here as well, maybe ,when it will be playtested, it will turn out to be no problem.

Thanks for the advice, Umaroth. Your right that I'll need to do something to stop projectiles from being fired over the building next to blue spawn. Thanks for spotting that.

I'm looking forward to seeing people play it so that I can see whether you're right with your 2nd and 4th points. I made the ramp to the red spawn face backwards to give blue more of an incentive to set up a forward base in the passage behind the red base. We'll see how well this works in practice.

I've made some updates to the map in response to the feedback that I received from the gameday on 5th March. Thanks to everyone who helped test it, especially DrLambda who gave my some extra advice on the layout.

The two problems that I've tried to address are:

Red snipers were too powerful in the first area and could see all of the blue spawn exits from one position.

The underground tunnels were too confusing.

I have heavily modified the first area, adding lots of extra cover. Also, blue are now able to stay on the high ground when they attack as I have added some raised routes.

The underground tunnels have been simplified so will hopefully be less confusing.

Okay, I felt guilty about forgetting to run it in the last gameday so I had a look through and I have some feedback for you.

Overall theres some really cool ideas here, but you're trying to cram far too much into a small map. Everything but the cart path is a maze of long narrow corridors. The layouts of these side routes aren't complicated, but its very hard to tell which routes go where - you can follow a passage and end up at a dead-end door, or the opposite side of the map, or the other direction to where you're going. It also makes almost none of the map feel safe: wherever you are, its very likely a scout or spy or pyro will hop out of an un-noticed side route and shiv you in the back. I would remove the underground tunnels entirely, honestly: they just let you skip past so much of the map. Either your team is split up to fight in two places at once, or all the tunnels are is a free route for someone to sneak behind the enemy lines.

The general layout of first, with the cart crossing the bridge and height advantages on each side, is really cool - my problem is that it's not very wide. Your most direct comparisons here are badwater (look how wide badwater's first point is!) and frontier - which has a whole extra set of routes around the buildings. I would make the first point much wider - maybe 256-320 units wider. This gives the attackers a bit more space to attack through, makes the lowest level less tight and killbox-y, and means that spamming the bridge is harder and less useful. The height advantages are also very pronounced: I would suggest making the left side (in the image above) only 128 or so units higher than the bridge. That should make it easier for the attackers - remember this area should be reasonably easy for them.

I like what you're going for here - something like Badwater or Boundary? But there's problems with it, mainly that its very difficult to get from the lower level (the marked X) to the top. Which is the shortest route here? Back into spawn? It forces teams to split into two: half push the cart, half go up to the top to clear out the defenders. Badwater does similar things at both A and B, but at A its very easy to get up to the top, and at B the defender's position only overlooks the point itself: here the defensible point locks down the entire map so far.

Something that happened a lot when I played a1 was that a series of sentries would be set up around the corner, meaning that fighting on the top level is difficult: edge around the corner and you get blasted by a sentry.

I would consider rebuilding this area fairly significantly. I would remove the upper level entirely, add the first point below where it is now, and build a fun fighting space there - which could include adding a more notable choke afterwards so sentries way way back. Think about the break between badwater A and B: it splits the two areas apart effectively without being a single big wide corridor (like you have now) or a chokepoint).

This would also let you take out the very long straight corridor in the image above - Very long straight corridors are bad. Unusually complicated tunnel systems are bad. I know that sounds like a contradiction, but the answer is: if you find yourself making a very long straight corridor, you've made a mistake elsewhere. Look at that thing! There's nothing that long and straight (and, let me say, boring) in all of tf2.

I like the twisty nature of this point, but look at the defenses down at the bottom! I've highlighted all the seperate areas where one needs to keep an eye out for a sniper or sentry: I count ten different ones in this image, plus two at least behind where the camera is! And the side routes lead down to several of these, so defenders are in the same position. You need to simplify the end of this picture, I think. For a reference for what sort of thing you're trying to do here, look at Badwater B-C - and how simple it is. There's one flank which goes around the side above the cart path, and one building for defenders - without an entire seperate underground area, and a jump route, and two bridges, etc etc.

Any one or two of the things you're doing here would be really cool. Like I said, these are good ideas, you're just doing loads of them.

For me the main problem with last is that its got very high heights and that the cart path is very narrow, and directly under the spawns. Soldiers spawn, and are literally right on top of the attackers ready to spam down without much chance of reprisal. It's difficult to get up to the top without scrambling up the crates or finding one of the long side routes, and once you're there you have to go up AGAIN to get to one area - a sentry gun on that second bridge is very well-protected against spies, and down at ground level the first bridge gives it cover, so its well-protected from soldiers and demomen.

I'm not sure what the most direct analogy for what you're doing here is. Look at Frontier last, and also look at Badwater, Goldrush, etc (and thundermountain 2.2): see where the sentry spots are and what their weaknesses are. See where the flank routes are: what the risks and rewards are of them?

I hope that was helpful! This is a great effort for an early map, and I very much hope to see some of the clever ideas - the bridge at first, the twisty second, the narrow low last - given more consideration so as to work as well as they deserve to.

Thank you for the useful feedback. I really appreciate you looking over the map in detail and I will definitely take your advice on board.

I think you're probably right about there being too much stuff in the map. I got a bit carried away adding alternate routes and I'll need to have a think about what I can do to simplify areas.

Starting with the first area (from Blu spawn to A):
I agree that widening this area would be good. The buildings that I added in a2 have made the area feel a bit more hemmed in and widening the area would help with this. I'm keen to keep the upper level. I really like the first area on Badwater where Blu have to take the high ground before they can push the cart and I wanted something similar in my map. Once I've made the area wider I might look at how I can make it easier for Blu to access the upper level. The area around A needs some work. I might make the area wider and add some more cover.

A to B:
I'd like to see how this plays before I make too many changes to it. I can see why you think there might be too much cover.

C:
You're right about sentries on the second bridge being too well protected. I put the bridge there to give Red another exit from their spawns but I might have to rethink it. I deliberately made this point hard to take as it's the final one but I might have overdone it.

As for the tunnels, I think I might get rid of the ones around Blu spawn and A, especially if I make the area wider. I am tempted to keep the one going from A to B as there is only really one route above ground.

Thanks for the advice. I didn't know you could download a vmf. That'll be useful. There was some really good feedback from the gameday, thanks for running it. I think there's still a lot of work to do on my map before I'm happy with how it plays!

Thanks to everyone who played my map in the gameday on the 5th June. The playtest went really well and I think I'm finally happy with the basic layout.

This changes for this update are mostly just cosmetic. I've done a first pass of detailing. Let me know what you think of the general aesthetics. I'm aware that there's still a lot of work to do before I release the beta.

The major gameplay change is that the final cap has been raised and is no longer so far behind the Red spawn.